Some More Thoughts on Poetry

I have to admit that often when I write poetry I write it just to write it. That is, I’ll say, “I want to write a poem!” and so I’ll sit at the computer, or at a desk with pencil and paper, and throw down what comes to mind. Sure, it often cleans up nicely and some of my most popular poems according to views, likes and comments, have been these more forced poems.

There are times, however, when I have something I want to say and can express it only as a poem. I might have a strong feeling or an overriding emotion. There just might be something bugging me. I just have to say it and use poetry to say it. Often these poems come out self-formed, all I’m doing is taking dictation.

Occasionally I will write a poem because I have something to say, only it is to myself. This type of poem is a subset of the ones above, but they are the most personal ones.

I don’t know if it’s true of my poems, but I find when I read others it is that third group, the personal poems where a poet is writing to clarify their own thoughts that most resonate with me. You see, they are talking about pure emotion, the most basic of all human communication. I read and say, “I know that feeling, I’ve thought that way before.” Or I might say, “yes, exactly. That’s what i would say if my tongue could express itself in such a clear way.” I read and I see part of myself in that person, I experience our shared humanity. I can look at them and say, “You are like me and I am like you.”

I recently put up a post about why we read poetry where I brought up some of these issues. Today a response of types was posted by “Idiot Writer”. She talked about the reasons she writes and posts poems. This got me thinking. I know, a dangerous pastime, thinking. This post is one of the results of my thinking about IW’s post that was a response to her thinking about one of my posts. See, poetry really does form the basis for communication!

Note – I once wrote about how I write poetry in post called “The Poetry Fraud“. It was a little less serious…

17 thoughts on “Some More Thoughts on Poetry”

My best poems, which are few and far between, are the personal ones; the ones full of emotion that I rarely show to anyone. With me, these emotional ones almost always come in Spanish. I go ahead with the flow and fill in afterwards (after checking my Spanish-English dictionary) to complete it so it’s a little nicer. Once in a rare while I will translate them to English so I can share them. However, that is a whole different ball game. Translating while keeping the tone and strength of the original language is a tough job.

I think it’s interesting that you go to Spanish for your most personal, emotional thoughts. I would think a translation couldn’t be a literal translation word for word, so yeah, I can see how it would be difficult.

And who said blogging wasn’t a community endeavor? Let’s push it even farther out – the original post was influence by someone else’s poetry and comments on left on her blog. So Someone influenced me which influenced someone else which influenced me back which influenced you to comment :)

Yes, of course ;) But also, you were half making fun with “The essence of humanity? ;) All our lives are a poetry – awake our souls? :P YAY for poetry!” So I was stepping it up a notch higher than that, saying that the whole Universe is based on poetry, the might sound of Ohm :D

(Trent, a bright, beet red, slowly backs away muttering something about being late for dinner, but doesn’t realize the door has been shut behind him. Pressed against the door he giggles nervously, but thinks quick on his feet.) Hey, did I ever say how much I LOVE your tag line? No? Well it’s great! But I said you were -half- making fun of me ;) And the universe does still ring with “Om” (sorry, I said Ohm, which isn’t the same unless we are talking electrical resistance or a scientist). But, notice I had a male AND female deities? ;)